MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sees nothing sensational about the media-hyped informal gathering between Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Germany’s Hamburg, Lavrov said in an interview with the NBC News.
Putin and Trump held one-to-one talks, but beforehand they had met and shook hands on the sidelines of G20. Later they saw each other again, the Russian foreign minister said.
"When the dinner was over, President Trump apparently went up to pick up his wife and spent some minutes with President Putin. So what?" Lavrov said, commenting on US media coverage of an ‘undisclosed’ meeting by the Russian and US heads of state on the sidelines of G20.
Both leaders could have held more than three "meetings" in Hamburg, Lavrov said.
"When you are brought by your parents to a kindergarten, do you mix with the people who are waiting in the same room to start going to a classroom? I believe you do. I remember when I was in that position, I did spend five-ten minutes in the kindergarten before they brought us to the classroom to start explaining to us how the animals differ, you know," he noted.
Earlier, Reuters, citing an undisclosed White House official, said that US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held an "undisclosed" meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit after formal two-hour talks. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that those media reports could raise eyebrows and cause confusion.